Essential Phone PH-1 Toast custom-cut wood cover Review

The Essential Phone PH-1 is a victim of circumstance – it’s not the most traditional phone on the block. Because the Essential Phone PH-1’s creators didn’t succeed the way they’d hoped with their first phone, the phone’s future is in question. In its current state, the PH-1 isn’t exactly the most likely candidate for custom-made or ready-made accessories or cases of any sort. The folks at TOAST seem to have tossed caution to the wind, because they’ve got a wood cover for the Essential Phone – one they’ve got available to custom-cut, too.

The folks at Toast specialize in custom-made exterior casings for smart devices. I’ve had a close-up look at several generations of their products, back a couple years into their custom-cutting business. In the years since I became aware of the company, they’ve only become more adept at their craft – as evidenced here in the Essential Phone wood cover.

The cover we’ve got going here is Ebony in Walnut. The wood that makes up the bulk of the cover is Walnut, while the accents are in Ash. Potential customers can also pick Ash wood for either the bulk of the cover or the accents (Camera & Button Covers in this case.)

In addition to the backside cover, we’ve got the Front Panel. This is an option in the purchase of the backside casing. One need add a little less than a third the cost of the rest of the casing to get this additional bit of custom-cut wood.

Like other Toast cases that work with phones with flat front sides, I’d recommend against the Front Panel option. It’s better here with the Essential Phone PH-1 to roll with the back and sides, the standard casing, only. Too much extra wood up front makes the phone slightly awkward to operate – and it’s most certainly not essential. That’s despite the fact that they did take extra care to cut around speaker vents and all manner of unique bits on the device.

Users can choose to get one of the company’s pre-set designs engraved in the back of the phone for between $5 and $10 USD. They can also choose to add custom text for $5, or have an entirely custom design cut for $30 USD.

The cut we’ve got here is entirely custom-cut. It comes from a variety of graphics I arranged here on my laptop and sent in to the Toast specialists to make a reality.

With the front panel and the custom cut the total cost of the Toast casing shown here would be around $74. Without the front panel and without any engraving at all, this same case would cost right around $34 USD. Either way, this is an investment worth the coin for this extremely unique smartphone. Take a peek over at ToastMade dot com right this minute. ALSO note that while official Toast covers do exist on Amazon, this Essential Phone cover only appears on ToastMade dot com.